


Child's Imagination

by Atalante241



Series: One Shots of Ideas [6]
Category: Lego Ninjago, The LEGO Ninjago Movie (2017)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, But Lloyd doesn't know that and neither do you, Characters Watching the Show, Characters watch the show, Crossover, De-Aged Characters, Dimension Travel, Gen, Kinda, Lloyds a creep who watches kids, One Shot, POV Outsider, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, but like not, but you guys don't get to see it, but you guys don't know that, in like four days and a week of not doing anything, kind of like watching the show but not, so shuhs, writer is impressed with how much she ended up writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:53:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23282071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atalante241/pseuds/Atalante241
Summary: Lloyd looked at the kids playing by the warehouse, the six of them seemed to be an energetic bunch. As he sat there he wondered how the kids would react if they knew that the Green Ninja was watching them play, or god forbid they somehow learned that Lloyd Garmadon was watching them.Not to get him wrong, he was just making sure they were okay and weren’t about to get kidnapped. The warehouse district wasn’t the safest place for kids, which raised a question in Lloyd’s mind. Who allowed them to play here?OrIs a child's imagination just that. Or is it more?
Series: One Shots of Ideas [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1552750
Comments: 23
Kudos: 86





	Child's Imagination

Lloyd looked at the kids playing by the warehouse, the six of them seemed to be an energetic bunch. As he sat there he wondered how the kids would react if they knew that the Green Ninja was watching them play, or god forbid they somehow learned that Lloyd Garmadon was watching them.

Not to get him wrong, he was just making sure they were okay and weren’t about to get kidnapped. The warehouse district wasn’t the safest place for kids, which raised a question in Lloyd’s mind. Who allowed them to play here?

The warehouse district was at the pier, so it was on of the first places that Garmadon showed up at when he tries to invade. This has lead to many of the warehouses being abandoned, and companies switching to more inland locations to store their goods. These things combined made the housing economy drop around the district, leading to it being mostly abandoned except for criminals. The place basically became a huge playground to them, the police lacked funding to take care of the situation so it was up to the ninja to make sure that nothing too bad was happening.

The kids were playing something that seemed like a game of tag, but more violent. Each of them had a bandana over their head and in front of their mouth, making the eyes the only visible part of their face. The only exceptions were the two of the kids, the girl had a cardboard box that was painted with red and black. The youngest of the bunch had a black hood up, sometimes he could hear the kid laughing menacingly at the five other kids. 

It seemed like the four bandana bunch were the good guys with the cardboard box girl sometimes helping out here and there, the one with the hoodie was probably the bad guy.

Suddenly the kid with the hood whipped out a can, he quickly opened it and threw the contents inside at the other kids. Out came a bunch of blue rubber snakes, the kids quickly ran away from them. The game continued with the kids kicking the snakes around until the hooded kid whipped one of the snakes up and into the black bandana kids face, Lloyd swore he could hear the kid say that the snake was gaining control of the kids mind. Apparently the other agreed with the weird game idea and started “attacking” the other kids, swingin the wooden golf club around.

The game for that day ended up with the bandana kids winning, and the hooded kid running off. And by running off Lloyd meant that the kid ran off behind a dumpster, and did a very interesting piece of acting of the snake that had hypnotized black-bandana kid overthrowing the biggest snake. 

Those kids sure have weird games.

* * *

Lloyd hasn't had that much time to watch the kids that play by the warehouse, with Garmadon attacking almost twice a day everyday for a month. But when he finally did he was very confused. Now two men who seemed to be in their early forties were apart of the game too, and the hooded kid had donned a green bandana combo on himself. 

The kids ran around in their getups, fighting the now multi colored snakes. Sometimes a man in a brown gi would show up to play too, but usually he didn’t stay long. Always saying something about the other two men making him have to take care of the dojo, while they played with the kids. Though this was always said in a teasing tone of voice.

One day the kids were walking in crouched positions, yelling something about a “Grundle” whatever that was. That days game ended with the now green kid drenched in something purple and really strong smelling, Lloyd was fairly certain that it was alcoholic but he wasn’t sure.

After that day all of the adults that had played with the kids showed up along with two new people, namely a man in his seventies and a woman in her forties. The play sessions got very real during that time, with the apparent father of the green bandana kid trying to take over the world but getting possessed by the “Overlord” while working with him. The man in the brown gi -apparently he was named Gareth or was it Dareth, yeah it was Dareth- apparently somehow took control of the “Overlord’s” army, giving the bandana kids the opportunity to save box head girl and de-possess green kids dad.

And Lloyd can’t lie, he was very interested in the whole thing. Apparently so were criminals. Every time he caught one in the warehouse district they asked him to let them watch that days play session, so that’s how Lloyd ended up watching bunch of kids play pretend with at least three criminals everyday. And yes, Lloyd knew how creepy it was. But it was better than letting the criminals of Ninjago City creep on a bunch of kids without supervision.

Near what the criminals called “the end of the season” criminal activity in Ninjago City dropped humongously, and you may ask where did they all go? Well Lloyd could tell you that but he’s too caught up in the story to talk that much, so we’re the odd seventy criminals with him on the rooftop handcuffed.

Suffice to say many tears of joy and sadness were shed on that rooftop during the week.

* * *

Going missing for a week wasn’t really Lloyd’s best idea, but can you blame him, the finale the kids had come up with was so freaking good. 

His whole school had noticed his absence, most probably thinking that he was about to start trying to take over Ninjago with his father. He still had no idea how he or the seventy something criminals lasted so long without any real food.

After the week ended the whole city was in for a big surprise, seeing the Green Ninja pulling a line of criminals after going missing for a week. Not to mention that most of the people in the line including the Green Ninja were dirty and smelled terrible, this was due to the heatwave that had hit during the week. So what would you do when the city’s hero comes tumbling out of nowhere with many criminals, well the obvious answer was to film it of course. Him passing out from hunger and dehydration after giving away the criminals didn't help his current look.

So when Garmadon attacked the same day it didn’t surprise anybody, but did dehydration stop Lloyd? No, no it didn't.

Being let out of the house was almost impossible after he got back home, his mother had been very worried about him during the week that he was missing. She tried to get him to talk about it, but he really didn't want to tell her that he watched six kids and their parents play pretend with an audience of seventy criminals. So he didn't tell her anything, now the fact that garmadon had attacked the day he got back meant that he was covered in bruises. But thanks to his and his friends amazing makeup skills they obvious ones could be covered, and the ones left could be hidden with clothing. So this meant that he was covered in bruises after he went missing for a week, and when his mother walks into his room as he's trying to pull on his nightshirt what does she think happened.

She thinks he got kidnapped by a Lloyd Garmadon hate group, yes those are things. They're mostly ignored by everyone because of their…… radical ways of thinking against Lloyd.

So that's how Lloyd ended up sitting in a police station while getting an incident report made for him. He didn’t tell anybody that questioned him about what happened during the week, so the came to the “obvious” conclusion of him being kidnapped for a week. So that's why he now has to deal with bunch of people staring at him while he walked to places or otherwise went outside, he was used to the stares of hatred but not curiosity.

Suffice to say he didn’t go on watch binges without his phone anymore.

* * *

Lloyd looked at the kids from the rooftop, there were more of them now, two more precisely. Both seemed really close to the white bandana kid, the boy of the new two looking almost identical to him except for the darker skin tone and red glasses. This time the game seemed to be about robots, the mini cardboard cutouts and plastic toys had clued Lloyd in on that one. The bandana kids of the bunch seemed to have lost the top parts of their masks, only the green one having one anymore.

The Overlord was back apparently, but this time he was a computer virus and he needed the green kids powers to get a physical body. Lloyd looked at the kids over again they seemed to be a gleeful bunch, sharing the same color scheme as the Ninja. Huh, he never noticed that. But as Lloyd thought more about it they were playing ninjas and were using the same color scheme as them, except the girl was wearing black and red.

So they were fans then, but as Lloyd looked at them he couldn't think of theme as mere fans. They had created an entire world on their own, even made their own characters and surroundings while playing.

Lloyd smiled as the white bandana kid ran towards the big cardboard monster that was representing the Overlord, they had created their own world and they had made something great out of it.

None of this mattered of course as Lloyd cried in his bed that night, refusing to believe that the white bandana kids character was dead.

* * *

The white bandana kid and his two friends were missing the next few play sessions, apparently the white bandana kid had been brought back to life and the others were tasked with winning a tournament to bring him back home. Now this had meant new characters, and oh boy was Lloyd having trouble having to keep track of them all. 

Sometime later bunch of the kids had to leave but some of them kept playing. The next day white bandana kid was back apparently all of them had broken out of the clutches of the evil “Master Chen”, the irony hadn't escabed Lloyd as he thought of the cheerleader at his school.

Apparently Master Chen had turned all of his minions into snake people, and the only way to win was to send someone to the curse realm but it had to be a specific person or else it wouldn't work. It would be lying to say that Lloyd didn't cry when the green kid had to send his dad to the cursed realm, it was very emotional.

And if it meant that he hugged his mom for forty minutes after she got back home, well that was nobody's business.

* * *

Lloyd sighed, apparently the green kid wanted to be the villain in the story again, so that how they had ended up with the green kid being the master of wind named Mor-something. 

The kids had come up with the idea of ghosts being real, and apparently they could be defeated with water. That was good news for the kids, because they decided to pull something Lloyd hadn’t expected at all. Apparently the box girl now was a bandana kid, Lloyd would be lying if he denied almost throwing a brick at the green kids uncle. Because what the heck dude, you decide to tell that only now!

But then Lloyd realised where he was, he was sitting on a rooftop watching kids play pretend. He had no reason to get mad at the kids, they were just playing and having no idea that the Green Ninja was watching them. But that didn't mean that he couldn't be mad by himself back home.

His mom had to buy him a new pillow.

And “the season finale” was something Lloyd binge watched again, but this time he came prepared. He had food and blankets with him, and a travel phone charger. So his mom didn’t get worried again. He didn’t want another repeat of the-seventy-criminals-and-missing-for-a-week incident, getting put on a watch list in case of other attempts like that hadn’t been fun.

So imagine this, him sitting in his room bawling his eyes out in the middle of the night because he can’t deal with all of the feelings he got from the finale. Lloyd should really find a way to went out his feelings.

* * *

Lloyd looked at the ground, only two of the kids were playing today. The others were missing or just didn’t want to come, either way Lloyd was invested.

This time the game had pirates and other stuff like that.

Bunch of cardboard cutouts and toys replaced the kids friends, but the two of them kept losing them. So they integrated it into the story, apparently some evil genie or something was capturing them one by one. And at the end only the two of them were left standing, they had some help of course. A new kid joined their game he was apparently white bandana kids brother, and Lloyd can’t lie he loved him. He looked almost identical to the white bandana kid, expect for the darker skin tone and age. The kid looked almost three years old, which really stuck out with the other kids being around nine or ten years old.

The man in the brown gi showed up again, and so did the really shady guy from “the last season” every time the guy went close to the kids Lloyd rose into a crouched position preparing to jump down just in case.

If Lloyd cried while standing on the rooftop when the “finale” came, well no one could prove it. Because he was totally alone up there, expect the few seagulls that he had befriended with food, he was alone up there. Watching kids play a game. Lloyd should really stop.

* * *

Lloyd did stop going to watch the kids play, instead he now watched how big of an explosion he could make when blowing up a Shark Army mech. And it was pretty big.

He did end up going back to the warehouse district, that was a must considering that their base was there but you can understand him right. Defending the city takes a lot of work, so the only time when he's free happened to be at night. But one day he had free time so he ran as fast as his medium sized legs could take him, so what if he skipped class. He was technically going to the bathroom, to a bathroom on the other side of the city and taking a long pit stop while going there.

To be clear he was very confused on everything that was happening, there were a new pair of people. They kind of looked like formerly box girl and red bandana kid, so Lloyd figured that they were their parents or something like that. Apparently the kids had added time travel to their game, and now there were more snakes.

Lloyd was confused, how the heck hadn’t they gotten tired of the snakes already. Apparently on of the kids agreed with him, so the green kid told everyone the reason. Lloyd was expecting some tale of the snakes being one of the first beings in the world alongside the humans, instead he got told that the kid had bought many snakes when they first started playing and he only found the rest of them now.

The green kids uncle was also there, and because of this Lloyd cried again. Because the uncle died, can’t the kids go one “season” without someone dying. Later on Lloyd realised that the uncle hadn’t died but only gotten lost in the time stream or whatever the kids had called it.

But that was after he went around school all depressed, it was a good anti-bully magnet. No one wanted to be the reason that Lloyd Garmadon snapped, either deciding to become an evil overlord or….. the other option that nobody liked.

* * *

Lloyd was going to be sixteen in a month, and he had no idea if he exited for it or not.

There was also another thing bothering him, the kids haven't showed up at the warehouse district anymore, and it was starting to worry him.

But one day they were back, and looking very different. Formerly box girl had grown out her hair somewhat, now wearing it in a ponytail. Blue bandana kid had acquired freckles from somewhere and his hair looked very messy, red bandana kid apparently upgraded to a full barrel of hair gel from half a barrel. The only ones that didn’t change that much were white and black bandana kid, the black bandana kid had decided to upgrade to sleeveless shirts and Lloyd was pretty sure that white bandana kids eyes were glowing.

Green bandana kids eyes had changed color also, now instead of the normal-ish red he had bright green almost glowing eyes.

Lloyd had decided to not pay attention on it, figuring that it was just something that he hadn't noticed before.

There was also a new kid in the crew, she had almost white hair, the sun's light flashing off of it. Only in the shadows of the warehouse her hair could be seen for its real color, which was a very pale blond. From what Lloyd could hear she and the green kid were siblings of some sort, he was stuck in between related or adopted. Which made the “romance” choice something that Lloyd was very uncomfortable with, Lloyd couldn't believe himself when he almost shouted in joy when the new kid turned out to be the bad guy.

It was kind of nice to see the green bandana kids dad again, but the fact that he was the bad guy again didn't make Lloyd very happy.

The “season” that time ended very aguishly, with the original four bandana kids “dying” only to throw another bottle of probably alcohol on the ground. Which somehow made them travel to another dimension, don’t ask Lloyd how it works he sure as heck doesn’t know. This left only green kid, formerly box girl and white bandana kids friend from before.

That “season” ended with the green kids dad taking over the “Ninjago” with the platinum girl helping him, also three others. Two of them were teenagers that apparently were friends with platinum girl, and white bandana kids brother was also on the bad guys side. Though all of them pretended that nobody knew it was him. On the good guys side things weren't looking too good, with half the team stuck in a another dimension with a baby.

Lloyd was really baffled about the baby part, from what he gathered the kid was the girl teenagers baby brother. And with her parents permission they had been allowed to make him apart of the game.

Lloyd’s prison visit after that season finale included a lot of yelling from the inmates, who were very intense about the game the kids were playing. Somebody might have broken out of prison, and if Lloyd was an accomplice in that prison break out. Well nobody could prove that now could they. It did help with not having to explain everything to the inmates.

Though the fact that his mom made him come back home very early didn’t really help with his ninja business.

* * *

The next “season” on the rooftop was very social, considering the fact that around seventy people were up there and on the other surrounding buildings. The kids went through that one very slow, this was mostly Lloyd’s fault. With him unleashing Meowthra and kind of destroying Ninjago City, and there was also the big adventure that he had.

When he got back to the warehouse, he stumbled upon something he thought he'd never walk into. Seventy criminals staring at him with varying looks of concern, being sat down and told that if his dad ever did something he could tell them and they'd beat the ever living crap out of him. It was very enlightening of what kind of people liked to watched the kids game, another thing that happened was the fact that he learned that a mafia boss was one of the people in the crowd. 

And when the Shark Army was being a bunch of jerks he had made his people make sure that the kids and their families were okay, what happened next is something that Lloyd would chuck in the “Things that totally didn’t happen” bin. And that something was him hugging the mob boss, and it never happened.

The game the kids were playing was getting very realistic, with the green kid starting a revolution against his dad. But it still held the childish innocence that all of them needed, with the whole “The color green has been outlawed” thing. So many things ended up happening that “season” with many character dying, and the kids actually introducing new ones. Like Faith and the Dragon Hunters, they were played by a local biker gang that one of the teenagers had met.

In reality they were less of a biker gang and more of a “We do charity races without organizing them first making them kinda illegal” gang. The in game biker gang was made out of toy bikers and cardboard.

There was a lot of silent celebrating when the “season” ended, somebody kind of got kicked in the balls during that. And they had to suffer in silence until the kids and other people left.

* * *

Lloyd looked at the kid while they played, they had come up with another plot this time some dark force was spreading across the world and only they can stop it. Many dramatic things ended happening. Like the black bandana kid falling off a trash can, his character being thought dead but then not. And apparently the only thing the kids decided that could stop the dark force thing was some golden weapons.

Which were the things the kids used in the very beginning of the game, it brought tears to Lloyd’s eyes as the kids ran around swinging the golf club and cardboard swords around. Oh the memories he could still remember when he first decided to be a creep and watch kids play a weird game and throw snakes at each other.

Talking about weird, bunch of graffiti had shown up on the wall next to where the kids played their game. But when Lloyd went to take a closer look at it he realised that it was drawing chalk, the kids had made murals of their “adventures”. Lloyd would be lying again if he said he didn’t have a heart attack over the cuteness.

A thing that ended up happening after his identity got leaked during the whole Meowthra debacle, was the fact that he got followed everywhere now. Be it because his mom wanted him to be safe and made some of the Shark Army men follow him around, or it was weird people that were trying to prove that Lloyd being the Green Ninja was a lie.

Also his mom realised that he had brought in those seventy something criminals while going missing for a week, this had meant that he got grilled on what happened by both of his parents. The fact that his dad had joined in had come to him as quite the shock, but he figured that his mom had something to do with it.

What he ended up telling them wasn’t very far from the truth just very edited, he told them that he had spent an entire week with the seventy something criminals and the bruises hadn't come from them but from when he and his friends fought his dad. He of course left out the very creepy bit of him watching kids play, while camping out on a rooftop with said criminals. But those are just unimportant details.

* * *

The kids had moved their game more towards the docs now that Garmadon wasn’t attacking anymore, Lloyd figured that their parents had decided that it was safe now.

Lloyd was starting to get kind of sick of the snakes that the kids kept bringing, this time they brought a yellow snake that apparently could steal powers. Apparently the snake liked the red bandana kids powers, Lloyd was pretty sure that they were also fire like Kai’s but he wasn’t totally sure.

The game had way more people now than it used to, now messengers from the local gang decided to play to the kids imagination seeing no harm in that. The kids had built a surprising reputation in the underworld of Ninjago City, Lloyd figured it was kind of obvious if you thought about it hard enough. Having the Green Ninja behind them and a very notorious mob boss and other assortments of criminals would really do that to someone, heck the kids even had witness protection program on them; not by the police though.

The moment the white bandana kid got sent to another dimension the audience lost their minds, people started hitting their arms and trying to stop themselves from screaming out in frustration. 

When it was revealed that the “Ice Emperor” was the bad guy in the other dimension people started placing best on who it was, some people bet that it was the white bandana kid wanting to be a bad guy and his actual character was imprisoned by the Ice Emperor. Some flat out said that the white bandana kids character was the bad guy, to say that people placed small bets on it would be an understatement of the century.

When it turned out that it was the white bandana kids character a lot of people shouted in joy, of course this was after the kids left.

* * *

Lloyd looked across the city in fulfillment, happy that nothing was amiss. 

Out of the corner of his eye he could see some familiar shapes moving down the street, looking to his right he saw the bandana bunch. Little later down the street he could see a few mobsters keeping an eye on them, and a few other criminals here and there.

The kids hadn’t grow very much during the nine months that he had been keeping an eye on them, the only differences being in their outlook or width. 

Suddenly a bright flash of light shined in the sky, Lloyd looked up quickly staring into the clouds. In the clouds was a cyclone, a beam of light shot from it hitting the ground. The earth shook and rumbled, people falling over and windows broke. The only people standing anymore were few of the mobsters, to his amazement the kids were standing up right. As Lloyd looked around he noted that almost everyone was running away or hiding in stores and other furniture, the only ones were the bandana bunch, their friends and parents. They almost seemed calm, suddenly bunch of the kids ran towards the beam. What freaked Lloyd out the most was the fact that most of them seemed to be smiling, as Lloyd looked he could see blue bandana kid running towards the beam the fastest only the kid who wore sunglasses everywhere wasn’t slower than him. The black bandana kid was also running towards the portal, but at a slower pace. The box girl and red bandana kid were running towards the portal with their parents, only green and white were taking longer. 

As Lloyd tried to stand up he could see the white bandana kid hugging his brother and the other one who looked like him, also who he thinks was his father was receiving a hug. Then they also started running towards the beam, the girl who they all seemed to be friends with was running with them too.

Off on the side Lloyd could see the teenagers who played the Dragon Hunters and the other two teenagers running towards the beam, the girl was also holding the baby that the kids had babysat while playing. He could also see the man with the brown gi and the sketchy guy, running towards the beam with everyone else.

Lloyd looked around more as he rose to his knees, only to be knocked down immediately by a push of wind. Looking up he could see the green kid hugging his father and mother, along with his adopted sister. The other three turned around and started running, leaving behind the green kid.

Suddenly another pulse went through the air but this time it was colored gold, the people running towards the beam changed. Some grew up many years, some straight up disappeared, others clothes changed. Some people's skin changed from normal to inhumane colors, some even sprouting completely new appendages in the proces.

As Lloyd looked up he could see the green kid standing in front of him. Just smiling down at him, the similarities between them were uncanny.

  
  


“I hope you learned something from all of it.” He smiled down at Lloyd, he then turned around and started running.

  
  


As the final person ran into the beam it suddenly retreated into the clouds, the syclone started spinning around more until, it just broke.

* * *

On that day twenty one children, eight adults and fourteen teenagers went missing. Footage of the disaster is available for anyone who searches for it, a chilling sentence is caught on every recording of the event always in the same volume.

“I hope you learned something from all of it.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have 0 clue how I was able to write so much of this this has like......4974 words...... HOW THE F**K DID I WRITE THAT MUCH.


End file.
